Slice of Life: Plastic Sister Cities
by Aimee Wolv
Summary: "Forgetting is good for the brain: deleting unnecessary information helps the nervous system retain its plasticity Meeting Roxy Lalonde was like meeting a storm. Well. If you knew how to appreciate a storm that is."
1. No Plastic Cities

Welcome to the beautiful Lalonde family.  
No one is a criminal.  
No one is an addict.  
No one is a failure.

Welcome to the successful Strider Bro's Co.  
No one is a criminal,  
No one is a plastic city,  
No one is a failure

Houston, Texas. Hot, sunny, and a hell of a lot better than whatever backwater town Bro was making us move to. I didn't see the point in it. He said it was 'to stop paps from straight up harassing [Us],' we both knew that was a lie. It was an easy place to pass me off for a while instead of _him_ getting pestered by journalists about this mysterious brother of his, this kid he's forced to look after. That's what it was. Even I, fresh faced at twelve, could see it.

I'd been seeing it my entire life.

Forgetting is good for the brain: deleting unnecessary information helps the nervous system retain its plasticity

Meeting Roxy Lalonde was like meeting a storm.

Well.

If you knew how to appreciate a storm that is.

I first met Roxy when we were ten years old. Bro and I had come down from the Texas heat to one of the big cities, Roxy and her mother had come all the way from Rainbow Falls. Her mother said that it was so she could get a proper taste of that ordinary school life. Bro said the same thing. We both later figured out they'd both just needed to get rid of us for a few hours every day to work.

A few hours turned into more.

Turned into days.

Sometimes weeks.

Months on some rare important occasion. If you define rare as, at the very least, six months a year. Sometimes in a row, sometimes spread out.

When I met Roxy she was probably the most innocent she's ever been. With cute butterfly clips in her hair, and the knock off light up sketchers she'd begged her mother to buy for her when they came to the city.

She told me that same day I met her, her mother had said there were better pairs of shoes to find.

She told her mother that there wouldn't be another pair of shoes like that in the entire goddamn world.

Not in those words.

Roxy could barely say 'darn' around her at that age.

We and our guardians both stood in the front office of that school, Bro had been texting away to one of his producers, or maybe some actor. A starlet he wanted to fuck later in the week. Something like that. He'd given me some portable DVD player, put on some stupid colourful horse show like he expected it to distract me thoroughly enough to not demand his attention and tear it away from whatever he was doing on that phone.

And fuck the guy.

It worked perfectly until Roxy got antsy and her mother wasn't enough to distract her while we waited.

One thing I can say is that Roxy's mother was a bombshell.

She had hair that looked like they'd taken the stars and melted them down into some bleach or dye and put it right on top of some pure silver that'd been fashioned into a wig for Pandora herself. She had this gloriously smooth umber skin. There was something about her though that, even at the age we were then, was pretty damn intimidating. Like she knew far more about everyone in the room than that person knew themselves. Might've been the whole dark and foreboding thing she was going for. Considering the kind of books that she wrote, which I only found out well into the year.

I ended up pouring over them late at night, analysing them like there was nothing else in the entire world that would help me get closer to understanding Roslyn and Roxy Lalonde.

Roxy was different to her mother, if you looked at them and blurred your vision a bit you'd think that they weren't even related at all.

Where Roslyn was sleek and proper, Roxy had this excited air about her. This boundless energy and obvious, obvious happiness. Roslyn's hair was sleek, put into a short bob. At this age her hair hadn't been cut yet, hadn't been straightened and given curls and twists instead of being left kinky. No, then she had two thick braids, this wild curly hair at the end of them. Her mother had these cunning eyes, almost constantly a bit narrowed. Roxy had eyes that reminded me of some badly photoshopped image of the sun that someone had turned pink, bold and vibrant, wide, but unnatural in colour.

They were _too_ vibrant, _too_ bold.

They had the same skin, but if you didn't look at the structure of their noses, the same pouty lip, those cheekbones, you wouldn't know they were from the same family.

I'd gotten through at least three or four episodes of that stupid old generation My Little Pony, (goddamn it Applesauce or Applejack, whatever, don't jump off bridges like that), when Roxy bounded over. Releasing herself from her mother's grasp to wander on over to us. She sat herself right next to me on the office's couch. Leaning right against me, almost pressing me against Bro, as she tried to have a look at what I was watching. She pointed to the screen, twelve year old fingernails painted this metallic pink. It wasn't messy, the less messy it was the more likely her mother had done it. Or, later, me.

"What're you watchin'?"

She wasn't loud yet then, didn't have a voice bursting and full of life, and love, and happiness. But she had a nice voice still. Just at a normal volume and pace.

"I dunno." I did know. But what kind of kid was going to admit they were watching a show made for three year olds in the principal's office? Especially considering this was a new school entirely. After settling in? Fuck, maybe.

"Some show Bro put on."

"Don't put it on me, li'l man, you're the one that likes it." His voice was absent, trying to seem like he was barely listening. It took me a few years to tell the difference between disinterested and trying not to seem interested. Almost directly proportional.

Still, when he spoke I flushed red and a giggle came from the girl beside me. I scowled at Bro, he'd only given a slight smirk in return.

I didn't have time to salvage my reputation before the principal called the Lalondes to him. Roslyn's slender hand grabbing her daughter's and gently guiding her into the room. She winked and waved at me before her mother pulled her away.

Once they were gone I slid down in the seat, hands over my face and groaning. First day and already Bro had made me into some joke. It was just like back home, which I still wasn't happy about. In my opinion, Texas had been fine, ideal even. Who cared it was hot and far from where he set his home base to work. There was nothing wrong with Houston. It didn't even matter that the arts co-ordinator and drama teacher really wanted to get close to the hot director/producer/writer/actor that sent his little brother to this school to get him out and about. It didn't matter. I would've even taken being left at home to my own devices over moving down here.

…

It was cold here.

It wasn't too long after the Lalondes went in and came out again (Roxy bouncing on her feet beside her mother) that we were called in. Strider Bros Crime Syndicate Co., the hottest and coolest pieces of shit this side of the goddamn galaxy. Pluto's freezing space ass included. Bro didn't grab my hand when we were called in, simply stood up, patting the top of my head to signal for me to stop moping and get up. I didn't want to. But I did.

There were these two plastic, uncomfortable chairs in front of the principal's desk. The wood looked like someone had tried to disguise something made from some cheap ass wood with varnish and darkening it.

Still looked like shit, wouldn't say that to her face for a couple of months or so though.

She started off with some basic introduction to who she was, what the school valued, bunch of crap that I couldn't even be half assed listening to even then. It was pretty much the same at every school: Don't make us look like assholes. No problem. Easy as. Couldn't if I tried. They'd do that all on their own.

Bro signed some forms, put down phone numbers to contact. Even if he put down his number, they'd have more luck contacting his assistants and then getting put on hold for a couple of hours than they would actually talking to the guy. It's happened before. It'll happen again. I couldn't have too much faith in how readily available he was to help out or save me from getting into some shit with the school for some stupid reason. Karen did that more, and better, than he did. And I hated it when Karen filled in his guardianship duties.

Maybe I just hated he wasn't the one doing it.

Regardless, the time in that office flew by quicker than a Strider can rap and rhyme. Then we were ushered out, principal following to meet us up with the Lalondes again. I only noticed then that Roslyn seemed taller than bro, probably would be even without the heels. Bro was pretty gangly, tall, but she seemed godly in a way. Powerful.

Yeah. ten year old me was already intimidated by her.

Roxy sidled on up to me when she saw me again, looping her arm through mine like a flesh and bone vine.

In later years, Roxy would tell me that vines were parasites. Wrapping around trees and other things to absorb nutrients from them and steal sunlight from them. Slowly killing their hosts, strangling them.

Roxy's arms had never seemed to drain a single thing from me,

They gave more than they got.

She didn't mention the horse show, My little Pony, only tugged me along with her after her mother and my brother. Talking about how exciting it would be to move to this new school, the new friends it would bring, the cool things we would learn. Even back then I could tell she was nervous and as unhappy about her move as I was.

Roxy Lalonde had been raised in captivity, in a cat zoo of a home on top of a waterfall. Her mother wrote books about wizards in a cozy study and Roxy wrote comics sometimes, one day she'd end up showing me, the satire and irony clear. She played dungeons and dragons with a slew of cats, dressed up as Harry Potter in her spare, spare time and played video games of all kinds. All while living within the glass walls of this cage of a house. Separate from the rest of her own kind. Not knowing a single thing about what it was like in a normal suburban neighbourhood, or in a normal suburban school.

Then again.

I guess I didn't either.

Eventually Roxy stopped, unnoticed by the three adults in front of us. Letting go of my arm and holding out her hand for a handshake.

"I'm Roxy by the way, sorry, should've started off with that in the first place."

"Dirk." I shook her hand, a limp and loose ten year old's handshake, "I'm Dirk Strider." I almost expected her to ask about Bro, even then I'd bet a few of the other people at the school would recognize him by name, if not by his face. But she didn't.

She didn't watch too many movies, she'd admit to me later down the line, he didn't make any wizard movies so she'd never heard of him before.

When she told me that, I decided right then that I would rather nothing else but to know Roxy Lalonde for the rest of my life.

"You from 'round here or?" She didn't have an accent that suited this area, but I guess neither did I. I thought that much was obvious. She had the strangest hint of British in her voice. Later she'd admit she used to watch Harry Potter more than she did anything else. Those movies helped her enunciate better she claimed.

I think her mother kind of forgot to do it herself.

"No. You?"

"No. Rainbow Falls actually! You?"

"Houston, Texas. You ever been?"

"No, actually! What's it like in Houston, Texas?"

"Hot."

Riveting conversation evidently. Nothing like it in the world. We were poetic masters at such a young age.

Bro and Roslyn salvaged us though, noticing how far behind we were and calling for us. They made this in-sync hand wave to draw us closer. We didn't notice it at the time, honestly.

Roxy grabbed my hand, pulling us forward towards our guardians. Had to continue the principal lead tour after all.

We wouldn't be starting today, we had nothing on us, of course. No books, no pencils or pens, no lunch either.

Not that Bro would make me lunch. For all I knew I'd have to do everything myself because he'd forget.

Forget he had a kid to look after.

Wouldn't surprise me.

We got lead through the school, stared at through the windows in the doors of classrooms. Watched other kids whisper and gossip and point. Wondering if we'd be in their class. What kind of people we'd be like. I had a feeling I'd disappoint them.

We wouldn't be those New Shiny Cool Kids they'd want, they'd want suave and smooth. Or rough and good at whatever sport was popular here, cricket? Seems like a cricket school. Or maybe they'd want another personality entirely. Something that fitted in a slotted with their personality and what they expected.

I didn't want that.

Roxy Had. Certain issues with personal space. At the time I didn't really get why, found it too awkward to ask why or to ask her to let go.

Living a life of isolation seems to keep someone from learning certain social cues. Then again, what did I know about how to avoid being awkward, that's what the shades were for.

"Obviously there are certain rules about dress code, especially eyeware-" Speak of the devil and he shalt appear. "-Of course we can't allow Dirk to wear his-"

"Non-negotiable." Bro's voice was ever monotone, but I could see that ever slight downturn at the corners of his mouth. The slightest hint of furrowing. He had my back on this at least, there was no way I was going to give my shades up for this school. I needed them, only the worthy could get a good look at these eyes. "Photosensitivity. He has to wear them." I don't know what about it made Roxy's mom look doubtful, but there it was. She turned her head though, readjusting Roxy's braids. Smoothing down loose hair.

"I- Of course. Of course. Moving on, hair is-" Roslyn looked to the woman. That sentence to this day remains unfinished, dying in her mouth every time she tries to bring it up to someone new. I've seen it happen before. She freezes up. It's said that her hair gets greyer and her skin more sallow every time she tries. I could never tell if that part was true though. Never looked at her close enough.

Wordlessly she led us back to the office. Giving our guardians those final forms before sending us on our way.

That was my first goodbye to Roxy Yidhra Lalonde.

Yidhra. "...An Outer God who is worshipped as a beautiful, awesome and terrible earth-mother, similar to Shub-Niggurath and might be connected to The Darkness..."

Roxy seemed like the least likely person to be connected to any kind of darkness. But what did I really know about Roxy Lalonde then? Not a fucking lot.

"I hope we'll be in the same class! That'd be nice."

"Yeah. It would. Get up to all sorts of crazy new kid bullshit together, ask teachers where the bathrooms are when we already know, start collecting gossip on why Jessica is such a slut, overthrow the Ukrainian government, try and get shit for cheap at the canteen. Normal stuff."

"Lmao," she said it out loud, actually said 'lmao' and fuck if I wasn't going to find that some cute shit later down the line, "I'm hopin' we're gonna be havin' that kinda fun. 'Specially with overthrowin' that government, can't let 'em govern and control the hopes of the people for as long as they have been. Somethin' somethin' beep boop bourgeois."

Beep fucking boop.

Her mother lead her away. Bro ruffled my hair and clapped my shoulder to guide me back to the car he'd only recently really learned to drive.

"What'd you think of the school?"

"S'alright."

"How'd you find the Lalondes?"

"Roxy's alright."

"Cute kid."

"Yeah."

The rest of the drive back to our new place was filled with rapping to advertisement music and songs that weren't supposed to be rapped to.

Freestyling all the way like a streaker at a football game. Like a commander going commando on a mission through the Amazonian rain forest to root out Russian spies that've got some new nuclear tech designed to help them take over the free world, only to find out that the very government that sent you after that tech has tasked their special equipment they gave you to blow you up as soon as you have those plans. Leading you to wonder whether you should fulfill your patriotic duty or go back home to your wife, children, and eight cats in one piece.

Truly a difficult choice.

Our new place wasn't anything like the old one. We hadn't even really finished unpacking yet. The apartment we used to have was fine, cords and wires running all over the place. Bro's turntables always somewhere different. A fuckton of swords on the walls that I wasn't allowed to touch but did anyway when he wasn't around to stop me. Hell, Cal liked it better back there too.

It was an empty house. Despite the unpacked and still packed boxes. The furniture, bought and brought. Despite the birdcage in the corner of one of the larger rooms and despite the cat that like to curl around Bro's shoulders in the morning when he made his coffee in his dressing gown originally designed for sultry women in pornos, or forty year old widows who arranged for the murders of their late husbands. Bro was hopefully doing neither. It was an empty house. Cold and empty.

Even the apartment, filled with just me, Li'l Cal, birdshit and the cat most of the time, was warmer and fuller than this place. I liked it better than this place.

But I didn't have a choice.

No one who isn't an adult living on their own really has a 'choice.'

If you go away, you do what your parents or guardians tell you to do, go where they direct you, eat what they tell you and so on and on. You don't have a choice until you're 'old enough' to make your own choices. In which by then since you've been unable to do that because of the previous restrictions, you don't really know how. So you blunder through life forcing yourself to make choices without knowing how and end up failing spectacularly until you get the hang of it. Wasn't exactly the best system for mental health I'd say. But, what would I know. I was a kid then.

When we got home I didn't storm over to my room and lock the door. Not. not right away at least. I knew how to play it cool, and I had to make this place as much mine as I did the last one. If I had to stay here I'd have to.

I grabbed a water bottle, big for a ten year old but small for an actual adult, and filled it with the only _real_ drink we had in the fridge at this stage. Juice that we'd mixed with soda water. Wasn't the best, but Bro hadn't gone out to get Fanta yet.

It'd do.

After that I visited by BirdShit's cage to drop a couple more seeds into it.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

Bro needed to teach that bird some other words.

"Seize the means of production. Fuck!"

Mm. Maybe not.

I headed to my room after that. Now that BirdShit was fed I could do whatever I wanted in relative peace and quiet. Bro's music would probably start up soon.

It wasn't bad, I didn't mind too much.

My room wasn't quite up to standard yet, but it was better than the blank slate it'd been. Wires weren't running everywhere yet. In later years, there'd be some of Roxy's wizard statues strewn here and there. But not yet. The puppets were up in their piles, or strung up at the roof. I had my desktop setup, Bro got me a new TV when we moved. Big, attached to the wall. It was pretty damn good, admittedly. Even if the first movie he'd given me to go with it was one of his own shitty LD ones. It'd ended up being a mashup of the entire series, scenes from one movie plastered over another and mixed together. It'd been a nightmare to watch, only if you did it unironically.

Li'l Cal was waiting on the windowsill for me, my Katana (a ten year old's birthday gift to himself) in his puppet-y precious hands.

I put the katana to the side, grabbing Cal and turning the TV on. Sitting down on the pile of mattresses that made up my bed at the moment. Sipping on the shitty makeshift soft drink as I flicked through the channels with Cal.

Despite myself I couldn't help but wonder what the girl I met today was doing. Whether she had a house that was just as empty as this one was right now. Or if her mother had already filled it up and made it warm. How it was decorated. If her mother actually stuck around and they had conversation after conversation about the day. About the move. About empty and cold houses that only had empty and cold boys to fill them.

I doubted it.

Until a rock tapped the glass of the window.

When I heard it I almost spat out the shitty soft drink, holding Cal a bit closer before moving over to the window. Replacing the bottle with the katana before I looked down.

And there she was.

Two braids hanging over her shoulders, a manic grin on her face as she waved at Cal and I from below. She held a cat in a tuxedo in her arms, he waved his paw too. Cute.

I opened the window up, leaning out over it, shifting Cal so he had his arms around my neck from behind.

"Hi!"

"Yo."

She shifted the cat in her arms to around her shoulders, it seemed rather complicit. Easy going. I didn't want to know how Bro's cat would react to the smell of it in my room. Once the cat was around her shoulders she started climbing up, tiny fingers finding holds in the smallest of grooves between the bricks that made up the outside of the house. I was pretty damn impressed honestly. Once she was close enough I reached out my hand for her to grab onto, pulling her up into my room. The cat jumped off and made itself at home on my desk.

"Did you follow us home?"

"Nope! We live nearby now here actually, and I saw the car your two got into so I thought I'd come say hi again. I'm Roxy, I said that before right? Sayin' it again. I remember your name though! No need't repeat it or nothin'."

"Or anything."

"What?"

"Nevermind." Her lips twisted, dissatisfied with the lack of answer, or maybe because I'd corrected her. My ears felt warm. "Do you want to sit down or? We got shitty soft drink if you want it." Her smile came back at that, waltzing her way over to the mattresses and sitting down. Patting the space beside her. I joined her.

"You gotta cool room! I've got the sneakin' suspicion you like puppets." I'd puffed up slightly when she called my room cool, about to say 'just wait until everything is unpacked it will be even better,' but ended up flushing for a second at her mention of the puppets strewn about everywhere. It wasn't exactly an interest people usually had. "They're kinda cute!"

Well that was a relief.

"Bro started buying them for me when I was younger. Creeped him out but I kept asking for them."

"Hella. Where's your bro now?"

"Dunno." Still in the house probably, even then I didn't really feel like introducing the girl who technically broke into my room to him. He always found some way to get anyone I knew under his thumb, ended up hanging with me to know him. And if she knew WHAT he did, I'd lose her as a proper friend quickly. "Probably working."

"Cool! Don't need to worry 'bout anyone gettin' in the way then," A worrying statement a murderer tends to make, "You got MarioKart? My mom's. Busy. And MarioKart is amazin' to get to know people with. You can skip out to my place!"

I hesitated.

I wasn't sure how well Bro would take that. And.

I wasn't even sure at the time if I wanted to get to know her right away. I had. A preference for the masculine in general. Everything about Roxy Lalonde screamed femme at the moment. From those braids and pink irises to the cats she'd obviously had her mother sew onto the bottoms of her jeans.

I had to admit it was nice handiwork.

"Uh. Well."

"C'moooon, we're on the same street, I'll bother you every day 'til you do it."

"No way."

I ended up over at the Lalonde house the next day after school. Fitfully uneventful and filled with other kids talking shit.

I didn't fit quite in like bro said I would. I acted the same as I had last time. Stoic, aloof, the perfect Strider cool act. It'd worked great last time. But, I guess everyone had already known Bro then. Or perhaps being overly cocky and flaunting how much better I was at the same time might have been the problem.

Roxy fared better for a little while. Then she'd brought a thick book with her, some grotesque creature on the front. Messed with my eyes even through the shades. I guess she expected people to be impressed with it. Wearing her family's accomplishments proudly as if they were her own. I'd envy that later. And even later regret the envy. Some kid cried at the sight of the horrific book cover. Said it was wrong, that it kept changing.

The next year I'd get the volume that followed that book as a birthday gift. I had to agree. It wasn't exactly a normal book cover.

I kept it in a box for a couple years before trying to read it. I regret not reading it sooner.

Anyway.

I sat with Roxy on these two couches she'd pushed together and covered in pillows and blankets in her little den area. The house the Lalondes had moved in to was bigger than ours, but not by too much either.

When I went over to the Lalonde house, I'd expected I'd have to go pretty easy on Roxy.

I got absolutely fucking obliterated.

"Oh come on!"

"First place sucka!"

I couldn't believe it honestly. I thought playing Tony Hawk skater pro would make me some pretty boss ass gamer. Roxy had, as she put it.

"Pro strats, Dirk, pro strats."

"Those aren't even complete words!"

She laughed from her chest, that kind of uncontrollable cackling. Hearty and loud. Unapologetic about her joy and amusement in every sense of the word.

An itch of _something_ started with that laugh. I just didn't know what it was yet. And wouldn't for a long time.

"I can't believe this. There is no way you're not cheating somehow. You have to be looking at my side of the screen." I was scowling. But I wasn't mad at her either. I just hadn't expected her to be _good_.

"Nuh uh! Pure skills here, Dirk, don't worry. Maybe someday you'll manage fourth place." She gave me a wink and I rammed her shoulder gently with mine, sending her off course for a second or two. With an indignant gasp we returned right to the track. Shit talking each other like we'd been doing it our entire lives. Didn't feel like it yet. But it would.

Roxy's mother wasn't entirely aware her daughter was bringing home some kid from school while she was gone doing whatever Roxy's mother did. And Bro wasn't aware I was sneaking off after he dropped me home either.

If this were a movie, or a show, or a book one of our guardians wrote. Then it might have been a plot point. Separated due to distrust and lying and not letting the elders know what we were doing.

Funny thing really.

They never found out. They were never home to catch us in the act.

Not even by chance.

The awkward firsts of this new place and new school were easily forgettable. There weren't any cliche outsiders to adopt us, no cliche clique to torment us. I kept to the outskirts of the social circle at first and Roxy, strangely charismatic, drew attention to her like nothing else. Eventually I socialised more at her insistence.

We hadn't met Jake or Jane yet, I wonder what it'd've been like if we had.

Empty, cold houses remained empty cold houses with the Strider clan. We didn't have the furniture or the need to fill up the entire space so we didn't and the Lalondes seemed to have too much and over filled before selling pieces off.

Bro bought a couch from the Lalondes.

It sits underneath my TV.

Days formed weeks, formed fortnights, formed months. Next thing I knew Roxy and I were turning thirteen. One day after the other. Bro and Roslyn let the two of us have a combined celebration.

Which really meant Bro had time to hit on other parents and Roxy's mother had time to sneak sips of alcohol when she thought no one was looking. I was always looking.

Roxy got me my first statuette of a wizard on our thirteenth, and a cap for Cal along with some last bits and pieces I needed to start my biggest project ever.

I handmade her a cat wizard toy and got off ebay a legit signed copy of the first Harry Potter book. That day she was so happy she said she could kiss me.

I told her that I knew she wouldn't be able to resist the utter charm and unmistakable sexiness this Strider had oozing off of me like pus from a really gross wound that got infected during the 'Nam campaign way back when.

She told me I was gross and kissed my cheek anyway.

Bro teased me for a good week after about it.

I placed the grey scale wizard on a shelf where I could see it from my bed. It fitted perfectly. I couldn't imagine a better place for it. And it made Roxy grin every time.

I guess I sort of loved that grin first.

One thing that I can say, unrelated to the Lalondes, was better than Houston,

Is that Bro was _around_.

In a few years we'd head back to Houston for a year and Roxy would video call me every day and sometimes I could tell she'd cried beforehand from something her mother had said or during the call purely because she'd missed me.

In that year,

I'd find a fascination with those celebrity lookalike pages in magazines. People who were almost, but not quite, the famous stars we love to gawk and poke and point at like exhibits in a zoo. Pushing our hands through the gaps in the bars of their cages for a chance to pet them, to feel someone less than real.

And then I'd find the level mouth of a celebrity lookalike I wish I'd never seen before that day.

Dirk's first year of small town life revealed that every summer Roxy disappeared, off on holidays to a family owned island. He had to admit, when she came back,

holding up seashells and dry pressed flowers as trophies and wearing her family's luck as her own,

He was the slightest bit jealous.  
(Him, with all the Everything he had and all the bonuses he got,

In future years he could've gone to those premiers of his Bro's movies, did what Roxy did and wear his success like it was his

He didn't)

Year two of this small town Dirk learned Roxy hid sadness in smiles and the more happy she seemed the more things she didn't want seen. Sure, maybe it was some form of illusion, but if there was one thing he knew it was recognising his sister cities.

Year three of small town life got cut short quick, it was July when his brother got the call to head back to Houston. He didn't sell the house, no, not yet. But Dirk still felt like his time here was at an end anyway.

The way Roxy had refused to cry

(She had so much practice showing that brave face but he didn't know that)

Her jaw clenching and face screwing up the slightest bit to hold it all back when he'd pushed her out of their hug to look at her.

(He couldn't break his face out of the stoney expression, constantly blank, constantly flat)


	2. Celebrity LookaLikes

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

And fondness makes the absence even longer.

Forgetting is good for the brain.

Forgetting is good for the brain.

Forgetting is not good for the people around you.

No one is a failure.

I was thirteen when Bro got the call back to Houston, Texas. He'd been asked to direct a long running TV show about some form of zombie or whatever it had been. He'd be there for the long haul and wasn't able to leave me back there in that small town alone. He hadn't sold the house so I'd had some form of hope the show would end quicker than expected and I could run right on back to a place where almost no one knew my face.

When I said goodbye to Roxy, unofficially, it had been when I broke into her house at one AM the day I found out we were going to be moving. I woke her up. Her hair had been taken out of her braids and it was. Everywhere. When she reached a hand between the curtains surrounding her bed and turned on her bedside lamp, the light cast a halo around all of that hair. Bro would've found it photograph worthy, probably would've gotten his Kodak Polaroid and snapped a photo then and there.

I didn't like photography like he did. I barely passed that class because I just didn't want to do it. But it only took a few days after settling back into the old apartment that I really wished I had taken a photo.

If I had, I might've filled that photo frame on my desk. Might have put it on the wall or stuck it by the mattresses that made up my bed. I could've saved it as my desktop wallpaper.

But that might've been a bit fucked up.

It wasn't like it would've been a photo of the both of us.

Still.

I would've liked something to help solidify that image of her in my mind. Before we both got older and started branching a bit more.

There was always one thing I could look forward to in Houston, Texas. Something that the small town I'd met Roxy Lalonde in didn't have on it, beyond all the other things a small town couldn't have on such a large city.

Trashy magazines and their celebrity look alike pages.

It might've been ironic at first, seeing all those people who looked like other people and get celebrated for it. Congratulations, you look like Oprah without any of the personality, permanent fame, and money. Have a sticker and a spot on a magazine page that'll go largely unnoticed.

They were, but weren't quite, the people everyone looked up to in their plastic lives as they ran about like ants. Physically similar to the people we'd up hold as Gods and made dance and perform for us.

Their faces had the same designs, the same hostile architecture and gothic arches, the same stained glass windows and the same floor plan. The same streets, highways, routes. But different people living inside, identical sister cities, with none of the personality. A shallow recreation.

A city for ants.

It was early in the year. A mailman had dropped a stack of shitty magazines on the doorstep while I'd slept in that Saturday, Bro was out of the house.

Bro, Dad, whatever. He never made it clear.

Bro was out and I had a stack of magazines on the table in the lounge room waiting for me. The most I did that morning was probably style my hair, brush my teeth, and pretend I'd showered before taking the magazines to my room and sitting down on my bed with them. I opened up the first one, skipping right to the celebrity lookalike page. Oprah, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay Z, some irrelevant b-list celebrity, and a few others I probably couldn't name if I tried. Uneventful, even as I traced my fingers over the cheekbones of the largest picture of the lot. I couldn't help but wonder about their life, did people flock to them purely because they looked like such and such celebrity? Did they hope that their lookalike status would help them get through life? Did they like their lives? Did they envy the human made God that they wounded up looking just like?

I almost wished I could've asked them, their pictures, and gotten a reply.

I picked up the next one, the first discarded to start a pile of To-Read-Later.

I flipped the pages, scanning over the celebrity lookalikes until my eyes locked onto one particular picture.

Looked at a plateau-mouth, and sunglasses of a kid named Dave, and felt a wash of ocean water go through my chest.

Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia is the scientific term for brain freeze. Contrary to myth, it can occur outside of the consumption of ice cream.

A rising, glamorous shooting star wouldn't have any shortage of partners.

Nor a collection of people to call their own.

I pushed the magazine off of my lap, off of the bed, and scattered the rest of them along with it. Finding places among tangles of wires, dirty clothes that missed the hamper and puppets that had fallen from their places.

So many days alone.

Weeks alone.

Months alone. Months spent fucking alone. Waiting for him to come back, to look up to him and admire him for everything that he'd done despite how long he kept me fucking waiting to see him.

All that time he'd been…

I pushed my back against the wall, knees rising up to my chest and hands burying in my hair. Ruining all I'd done to it before grabbing those now abandoned magazines. Pressure built up behind them, I didn't notice I was crying until I felt my lips pulling back and forced myself to keep down a wail. Gasping softly as fat and hot tears started rolling down my cheeks and staining the skin they rolled off of.

I didn't even know if he'd be home that day, that week, that fucking month.

I didn't even know if I wanted to see him home. If I wouldn't have ignored him, told him blatantly that I knew, or would've just tried to lock him out the apartment.

I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know what the fuck to do.

I sat there for who knows how long before I picked the magazines up, finding the one with Bro's…

I found the magazine with the kid called Dave in it, and tore out the page. Stuffing it into Cal's cap before I got rid of the rest of the magazines. Tossing them into the trash, tearing out the lookalike pages and throwing them out the window. Watching them flutter and fall to the streets below like the leaves in autumn. Some landed on roof tops, others made it to the street or got blown too far for me to tell where they landed.

I cancelled the magazine subscriptions.

That was the last time I read one of those pages for a very, very long time.

I couldn't look at Bro the same way, not quite. I kept wondering if when he looked at me, if he was comparing me to his other kid. If he wished that it was him standing there instead of me.

It made me feel sick.

For a while,

I hated him, and myself.

During the year away I was more often found wandering the set of the show that tore me away from that empty and small town.

I hated it, I'll admit it.

I hated the show for existing, for uprooting me again and forcing me away from the first person who hadn't known Bro and, by extension, me and only wanted to know us for that.

I hated it for taking up even more time than any of his work normally took up as well. I hated every moment I was there instead of at the school I'd been re-enrolled in because I knew every single second was a second that I wasn't supposed to be there and Bro didn't notice.

The school would've called of course, and he'd get the memo eventually and then he'd have to re-arrange his schedule to allow enough time to ask me what the fuck I thought I was doing wandering away from school and potentially getting him in some shit with the law.

I didn't care.

But I stopped running away from the school eventually.

Roxy and I skyped every single day. She started the calls when she was getting ready before school because she knew I'd be awake anyway, and I started the ones after I got home from school because I knew she would still be up playing Pikmin.

I got her that game for Christmas one year.

She fucking loved it.

On the weekends we ended up in a video call for the entire day, unless we had other things planned. Even if we didn't end up talking for the entire time, we still kept the call going. More often than not Roxy took a nap during the middle of the day and I ended up counting how many times she'd have to shove Jaspers off of her face in her sleep.

Seventeen times on March eighteenth.

Five times on May twentieth.

Ten, July twelfth.

One, September nineteenth.

Zero, October first.

Two, November fourth.

Ahem.

On the weekends, Roxy's eyes were sometimes red. That was common, she never said why. But it wasn't hard to tell she'd been crying,

She admitted later it was because it was because she missed me, seeing me on the screen made me feel even further away.

Years later and I felt guilty for leaving her alone for that year,

Not in the same sense she disappeared for part of the year and dragged off to that family summer home, no.

Not because she cried.

But because it took a few years for her to admit to the shit that had happened during that year.

How Abrahamic gods made the skies rain red and glass, and worked in their mysterious ways. Offering up the innocent, the unknowing, the blissfully ignorant, to the heavens above and making the sacrifices without their consent. Without their knowledge.

How small minds in small towns turned to small and sharp words.

Even if I didn't love her then,

She was so beautiful in so many ways and didn't deserve the shit she went through.

She was my best friend.

(At fifteen she'd learned everything she could about a subject she wasn't even taking to help me pass it,

That same year she talked me down from running away from Bro and had me spend every night at her place for month's right under our guardians' noses.

She bought me lunch for the entire year because she was of the opinion my food sucked,

And it's kind of true,

It did back then.)

"Soooooo, how was your borin' ass school today?"

She wasn't playing what she usually did this time, no weird alien creatures flipping through the air, maybe her mother had gotten her something recently. But why would she? I don't think even Roxy remembers the last time her mother just got her something like that out of the blue. Maybe she was trying to make up for something? Had Roxy gotten an award? I didn't remember her having of mentioned anything like that recently.

I hadn't realised I didn't answer Roxy's question until she tapped on her mic, jolting me from my thoughts and questions over such a stupid deviation from the routine.

"Sorry. What was that again?"

"I saiiiddd, how was school?" She rolled her eyes, I could feel my ears getting hotter at being caught out not quite listening to her.

"Oh. No school today. Vacation started, I'm trying to see if Bro will let me head back to the old house for the next few months." She perks up at that, subtly. Straightening the slightest bit, hair free of braids and bouncing. My eyes flickered to the corner of the screen when she moves. I frowned.

There was something colourful on the TV cabinet in her room.

I feel an icy chill down my neck. She's saying something. What is she saying? The words aren't reaching my ears. Hyper focused on the fucking card on her TV cabinet.

It's a fucking birthday card.

I forgot her birthday. World class fucking asshole right here.

How could I have of forgotten? I'd been planning something for it for a month or maybe five and I'd forgotten completely. Hadn't even completed the gift. I took a guilty side glance to a tangle of wires and half-heartedly shaped metal. Why hadn't I finished it? What kind of asshole had I been to just quit the project in the middle, to forget it despite how important it was.

I turned my attention back to Roxy. She didn't have the same kind of ever blank face that my family did. But she did have an expression like it in her own right. She still had tells. The slight curling at the right corner of her mouth. She knows. Knows I wasn't listening, knows I might have forgotten. There's only one thing to do.

Lie.

"I didn't send a present, I was thinking about taking it down with me when I come to visit. So I can see how much you cream at the very sight of its complete extravagance and next level artistry."

She snorts and I feel relieved. She believes me and that's what matters.

Doesn't mean that it feels good to lie. What kind of asshole forgets something like this when the days are filled with nothing but monotony? It should've been a blessing to work on it.

But I did forget.

I end the call early with guilt grabbing onto my intestines and turning them into knot after knot in an attempt to punish me for my wrongdoings. It's the first time I've felt this bad and wouldn't be the last either. It's motivation for the most part.

I grab the tangle of metal and wires and sit at my desk. Taking a moment to look at the mess before me and inwardly wince. I hadn't taken as much care of it as I'd thought, all the wires matted together and the metal a bit dusty.

I wipe the metal clean and set to separating certain wires before resuming the work I'd put down God knows how long ago.

I start twisting the pieces and parts into place. It slots perfectly, as expected. Every part finding its place and losing myself in the mechanical work of it all is relieving. Grab a part, check it's the right one, put it into place, make sure it won't come off, rinse repeat. Repetitive and therapeutic. Why had I stopped? Right then, I couldn't be sure.

My hand reached for the last piece to finish the skeleton and plating, finding nothing but empty space. I reached again, patting down the desk.

The last piece.

Where was the last piece?

I could've sworn before I started every piece was there, it wasn't possible for it to have of suddenly disappeared. It had to be on the desk. I looked up from the incomplete machine, scanning the desk over. Oil everywhere, useless wires coiling at the edges of the desk. Picture frame of Roxy and me. No last part.

No last part.

A cold feeling washed over me. Like a frozen tentacle had wrapped around my limbs and organs, coating me in rancid slime and mucus with the intent to squeeze me to death before dragging me to the bone hard maw to crunch my bones and tear the skin off of my flesh before devouring me, starfish style.

Admittedly that would make the entire mouth thing fairly useless if it was done starfish style but it's the thought that counts.

My nails dug into the palm of my hand, short and torn as they were, as I sat there wondering how I could be that careless and that much of an idiot.

I was tempted to sweep it all off the desk, to abandon the project again and just come clean that I was an asshole who had forgotten Roxy's birthday. Some friend I was. There was no wonder Bro was gone so often, had this other kid I'd never even met. He had plenty of cause, I couldn't be a good friend to the one person who had done nothing wrong to me, why would he think I could be the perfect fucking son for him.

He probably wished he'd had Dave first, publically, that I was the one in the magazines as a lookalike. Someone not quite there, but definitely close enough to get the tiniest picture on that page.

I stood up, pushing myself away from the desk before I ended up crying. I took a screwdriver and stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans before leaving the room.

I went through the kitchen, pulling appliances out and checking them over. I pulled them apart, grabbed things from them and put them back together like nothing ever happened. I'd tell Bro's assistant that they had stopped working in the morning and she'd order more to arrive before he spontaneously showed up in the next few months. Bro would never even be able to tell the difference. He didn't see them as often as I did.

I brought all the pieces I'd ripped from the kitchen back to my room, tossing the screwdriver onto the desk before I looked over the parts again.

It took a few hours, but the pieces were contorted into that last missing element of Roxy's present. It was finished.

It didn't run like it was supposed to, might've sounded like I pulled apart a toaster to make it, but it did the basic movements of a cat stretching and walking and that was what mattered.

I pulled fabric over the top, cutting, stitching and gluing it over the metal pieces.

A custom made toy cat for one Roxy Lalonde.

A four-eyed one, but goddamn if it didn't look like a fucking cat.

I pulled out an old moving box, small and an okay-ish size for it, and half filled it with fabric before putting the toy inside and covering it with more fabric. I'd wrap it up in paper later and pretend that I'd had it all this time and hadn't finished it the day I'd been reminded of her birthday. I pushed it under my bed and stood up to warm up some shitty microwave meal that the cupboards were stocked with for the days I couldn't be bothered walking down to a supermarket to have an actual home cooked meal.

It was some form of chicken curry in a cup.

It wasn't that bad.

The rest of the night was uneventful like all the nights before it.

I started going to bed earlier than before, not bothering to wait up at god knows what hour for Bro to come home and watch him stumble to the couch or to his room.

To be called Dave in a potentially drunken stupor.

I should've known in hindsight really. From the get go. From the first time it had happened at six years of age. I suppose it just seemed like a silly game then.

It was a week later when Bro took me down to the airport-

Well. When Bro arranged for me to go down to the airport with his assistant. She helped me organise everything, got on the plane with me, paid for inflight movies with Bro's money. The entire time I clutched the box with Roxy's present in it to my chest, Bro had arranged for it to get through security and onto the plane with me.

My legs bounced up and down the entire flight, and from the way Bro's assistant looked at her Xanax, it was probably annoying her. Or she thought she ought to shove some down my throat to calm me down.

It wasn't that I'd never been on a plane before, I'd been on thousands while Bro lugged me from place to place and pushed me back to the previous place again and again. I just.

I didn't want to disappoint Roxy.

But I did really want to see her.

Houston was lonely without her bright flash of teeth and the tuxedo wearing cat she carried around with her when we weren't in school. I missed her voice and how she'd hang over my shoulders when she spotted something interesting on my computer, or how we'd just sit or lay next to each other watching dumb movies. I miss losing at Mario Kart to her and beating her in Mortal Kombat.

The plane ride was long, and filled with recently released movies the company had bought to entertain passengers with the cash to spare. There was little turbulence, and it was over and done with quickly. Well, relatively quickly. It might've been longer to fly to Australia, for example.

The town's airport was small, and getting out was easier than it was getting in Houston's airport. Bro's assistant drove us to the house, neither of us really saying a word to each other. She tried to make conversation, asking about Roxy. I suppose I could've been kinder, actually responded and acted like I wanted to talk to her. Rather than giving grunts and one word answers. She was no Bro, but that didn't mean I had to take my frustration out on her at the time. It wasn't like she'd of volunteered either, Bro had probably pointed to her out of a selection of his employees and said "Go look after my kid for me." it wasn't her fault, she had has little choice as I did. I should've been nicer.

I was just a kid.

When we got to the house and she'd unlocked the door, I helped her unpack everything. Pulled suit cases from the car and put them inside the house to be unpacked as needed. We set up chargers for our respective phones and laptops before she went through the kitchen. Tossing out food Bro had left behind and had gone bad. She said something about stocking the kitchen up and left with the car.

I took the box with Roxy's present in it, opened it up to check on it. Everything still worked and hadn't been damaged. Good, good.

The box had been wrapped in pink paper. I'd take money out of Bro's wallet when he was sleeping and then left the apartment to go buy it. It'd been worth it.

I picked the box up after putting everything back inside and carried it down the stairs, out the front door and towards Roxy's house. Her mother's car was out the front. They were home at least.

I walked up to their front door, putting the box down by my feet and fixing my hair. Only after I was sure I was ready did I knock on the door. It took a minute, maybe two, before the door opened. Roxy's mother, tall, pretty, and imposing, towered over me.

"Dirk, this is a surprise." Her tone made it seem as though it wasn't at all and that she knew every mistake I had made in every year of my life along with all future ones. "Roxy's in her room, you know how to get there, yes?" Of course I did, the amount of times I snuck into that room and the amount of times I'd gone in properly were astronomical. I nodded.

"Yes, Ms. Lalonde." I picked the box back up as she stood to the side, scampering away from her and up the stairs to Roxy's room. I didn't knock on her door, knowing very well she was probably playing a video game and wouldn't have heard me anyway. I pushed the door open with my hip, the box taking up the use of both of my arms.

It happened too fast to comprehend really. One moment I was holding a box and stepping foot into Roxy's room and the next the box had been pushed onto a nearby closet top and Roxy had her arms wrapped around my waist. Her hair unbound by hair ties, coily and reminiscent of an angel's halo. My arms were held sort of awkwardly in front of me, forgetting to wrap themselves around her in return for a few seconds before I returned her tight embrace. Fitting us back together like we had when I left, like a jigsaw with only two pieces.

I buried my face in her halo of hair, and gripped on tight. Never wanting to let go of her. It felt good to be here again, no matter how short the time spent here was. It felt so fucking good to be with someone who didn't have another version of me waiting for them, who didn't say Dave when they came home, who was around.

Someone who wanted me around.

I mustered out a weak "Hey" after a while, face still buried in her mass of hair and her face pressed against the crook of my neck. I could've stayed there for years. "Happy birthday, Rox."

"Happy birthday, you big ass."

I laughed. A good, and genuine laugh which probably helped keep back the emotions that all the time we'd spent apart had created. Reluctantly, I let go of her and picked the box up, pushing it between us so that she'd take it.

"Here, for your birthday." I stepped back, she knelt down on the floor to open the box up. She pulled out the first few layers of fabric, tossing them at me when she got sick of pulling them out.

Then she lifted out the homemade toy cat. I felt the world stop.

What if she knew that I'd forgotten about it?

What if she didn't even like it in the first place, what if she already had one like it from an actual factory that knew what they were doing? She just kept staring at it. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, I was almost regretting just not buying an actual gift for her.

She grinned and hugged me tight again. I felt that worry wash out like the tide and returned the grin with a small one of my own.

"You like it?"

"'Course I do! Look at it! They're so cute, Dirk, oh my God."

"Told you that you'd cream your underwear when you saw it, no one has anything on the pure mastery and artistry of this piece. Just fuckin' look at it, those soulless eyes that speak of the betrayal we all feel towards capitalism, the colour of the fur indicating-"

"No."

"Fair enough."

The rest of the day, until Bro's assistant came frantically looking for me when I didn't answer my phone to come on home, was spent with Roxy and the toy cat. Teaching her how to operate it, and just catching up in general. There were new photos on her wall, most were Polaroids of the two of us. Hanging out, playing video games, stuff we usually did.

There was a twist in my stomach when I saw the other photos, pictures of her with some other guy. I didn't know who he was then, and wouldn't until sometime later, but the comfortable way he slung his arm around her waist and the goofy grins on their faces unsettled me in some way. I might've reasoned it as me being some jealous dickhead, or maybe just some form of feeling protective- Possessive, over Roxy. That's how I justified it then.

"Who's the guy?"

"Who? Oh! That doofus. He's, like, a kid I know because my mom sorta does some stuff with his grandma or whatever. Mom couldn't go up to meet her, so this kid's grandma took herself and him down here for the summer while they work together on something. He's a total loser, though, and beatin' him in Pokemon is soooo easy." I winced, Roxy's teams always seemed to be so damn overpowered somehow when it came to Pokemon. Despite the initial hostile reaction to finding out he existed, I couldn't help but feel sorry he'd been subjected to that kind of loss at Roxy's hands.

"You're terrible, Lalonde."

"You know it."

I forgot about the guy after that, forgot to ask for his name and blocked him out until much later. It was hard not to forget him when Roxy was trying to challenge me to some game or other, luckily it was one I'd been practicing with back in Houston. Not that she knew.

I won the first couple of games, then Roxy really decided to come after my ass.

It felt like nothing had changed really, I almost felt like we'd be going to school tomorrow and I'd wait for her by her locker so we could walk to our classes together. Eat lunch under the tree near the cafeteria and watch the teacher on duty frantically pull a student out of one of the large bins. Or watch a fist fight over Magic cards.

When Bro's assistant came calling, Roxy's head was in my lap and my hands were petting her hair. We weren't really talking about anything, Roxy was fiddling with the toy cat and I'm pretty sure she was about to fall asleep.

I got in the shit that day with Bro's assistant, and I'm sure Bro would say something about not doing that again if he remembered it the next time we saw each other again.

But it was so fucking worth it.

For the next few days, it was that same formula. I told Bro's assistant- Whose name I learned was Brooke- I was going out for the day and left for Roxy's place. We spent the entire day together, and then I went home for dinner, got sent to bed, and Roxy either snuck into my room or I snuck into her room.

The routine was interrupted on a Tuesday.

"I'm going to Rox's place."

"Alright, have fun." That was the general extent of Brooke's and my conversations during the day before seven PM.

I ran to Roxy's house that Tuesday, jumping over the hood of the car Bro had rented for Brooke while we were here and jogged across the street.

There was a new car outside of Roxy's house that day, an older looking one, straight out of a film. The kind you're surprised to see on the roads during the weeks that some antique car show isn't coinciding with. I ignored it, figuring it had something to do with her mother's work and continued on my way inside.

Her mother let me inside, got back to her work and I took the stairs, two at a time, to get to Roxy's room. I could hear laughter from the top of the stairs. Not just Roxy's either. That same twist of hostility turned my intestine to knots and rearranged my spine. I forced it down, forced the roads of my body back into place, stopped the wooden floors from buckling and opened up the door to her room.

Roxy was sitting on the rug in the middle of her room, cross legged and wearing a hat with cat ears on it.

There was a dark haired kid with her, sitting across from her, with dark messy hair and thickly framed rectangular glasses. He had some sort of jacket on, a weird and almost cartoonish skull decal on the pockets. It was the kid from the photos. Even from the doorway I could see those almost freakishly vibrant green irises. The kinds that photoshopped black cats have after people enhance the colours of their eyes and darken their fur to be edgy and witch-y.

The kid needed to learn what a hair brush was honestly.

His skin wasn't as dark as Roxy's, but he definitely wasn't white. I learned later he was Polynesian, New Zealander to be exact, which explained a lot of his… Speaking style choices.

Roxy jumped up when she saw me, smile wide, and any hint of the way I felt about the break in this routine was carefully hidden away in a box in my head. Filed away under: Inexplicable jealousy and mild feelings of protectiveness.

"Dirk! Dirk, this is the kid I told you 'bout, totes forgot t'tell you his name, sorry, but this is Jakey!"

"Well isn't this the bee's knees finally meeting the infamous Mr. Strider Roxy's always going on about. Swell to meet you, chum! I could've sworn dear ol' Roxy here was going to cast a kitten if I didn't end up conversing with you at some point and what a good day it is for you to choose to be a crasher while I'm getting a hard-boiled earful from Roxy on ways to improve my Pokemon team. Ish kabibble I say on the topic."

I had zero ideas as to what he had just said.

"Jake, could you for once in your entire life please talk in English for five seconds before I ruin any chance you ever have of playing another Pokemon game ever again."

Despite Roxy's… Her way of speaking, he didn't seem to mind, only really grinning and punching her shoulder in a good natured fashion.

I kind of felt like Roxy had underplayed their relationship a little bit when I asked about him. 'Just some kid,' my fucking baby smooth ass.

"Good to meet you too, man. I'm hoping Roxy's been retelling all of the times I've saved her ass from certain doom like a dope ass prince with his dick out wandering through the woods and covering the nearby forest in a light frost from the pure charm that radiates out of his asshole like the sun on a forty degrees Celsius day in any country that isn't America."

"I hate you both."

I sat down with the two of them, hesitant and cautious of this Jake character but neither of them seemed to take any notice. Roxy leaned against my shoulder, and I put an arm around her instinctively. They carried on talking about how 'Nooooo Magikarp is nooot a legit Pokemon an' you, jungle boy, should know that.' I chimed in, surprising myself with how there were things I did agree on with Jake instead of Roxy.

I suppose it really did surprise me it turned out to be fun. There were times I didn't understand a word Jake said, I think he threw in nonsense words in for the hell of it, but he was an alright guy. Friendly to a fault and more than enthusiastic about things.

He did seem.

Pretty cool.

When I had to leave, 'least Brooke ban me all together from visiting, he asked if we'd be hanging out again soon.

I said yes. He would have that honor of hanging out with the master of swordsmanship again sometime soon.

He had a nice smile.

It wasn't Roxy's smile with her slightly jutting out canines, but it was a smile that suited him. Buckteeth and all.

I left Roxy's house not feeling jealous like I assumed I would,

I was rather happy for Roxy in fact.

 **== Dirk, Roxy, Jake: Age.**


End file.
